Calvinism as a Precedent for Islamic Radicalism

Calvinism as a Precedent for

Islamic Radicalism
RICHARD MANSBACH
Professor of Political Science
Iowa State University

CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL POLITICS FEATURES A marked revival of religious fundamental-

ism, partly in reaction to globalization, its homogenization of political and social
norms, and its corrosive impact on traditional institutions. These contemporary
themes echo an earlier period when militant Protestants rose up against the politi-
cal and religious establishments of their epoch. That revolutionary movement and
its ensuing transnational violence were essential preconditions for the emergence of
the territorial state and the modern state system. This institution, Europe’s great-
est political invention, has dominated global politics for more than three centuries. 103
But contemporary fundamentalism challenges the independence and viability of
the territorial state, heralding an end to the European era of global politics. The
fracturing of Christianity produced a decentralized world of states; and the efforts
of Islamic militants to restore the ancient Caliphate threaten to destroy it.
Fundamentalism, whether Islamic, Hindu, Jewish, or even Christian, insists
that government reflect a literal reading of God’s word as revealed in holy texts.
Today’s Islam is in the throes of a contest between militant and mainstream ele-
ments, and one of the key differences between the contestants is their view of the
relationship between religion and state. Militant Jihadists seek the revival of the
medieval Islamic empire, or Caliphate, and the establishment of theocratic author-
ity over the umma, the global Islamic community. This division echoes the recur-
rent debate that, following the Prophet’s death, divided Islam on the subject of
whether rulership should be exercised according to pre-Islamic tribal custom or
according to the Qu’ran and the Hadiths.
By professing its aim of recreating the ancient Caliphate, al Qaeda declared

RICHARD MANSBACH is a professor of political science at Iowa State University. He is the author of Global
Politics in a Changing World: A Reader, Remapping Global Politics: History’s Revenge and Future Shock, and In
Search of Theory: A New Paradigm for Global Politics.

Copyright © 2006 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs

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 RICHARD MANSBACH
war on the territorially-grounded interstate system and the structure of global
authority which draws its legitimacy from the concept of sovereignty— or, as James
Caporaso expresses it, “the ideological justification for ultimate control within a
specific territory.”1 Radical Islam is thus making universalist claims and refusing to
recognize the legitimacy of territorial limits and frontiers—a reflection of its no-
madic roots and the legacy of the Arab conquerors. As Hitti argues, “the campaigns
seem to have started as raids to provide new outlets for the warring spirit of the
tribes now forbidden to engage in fratricidal combats, the objective in most cases
being booty....But the machine...soon got beyond the control of those who built
it...[The empire’s] creation was therefore due less to early design than to the logic
of immediate circum-
Contemporary Islam is passing through stances.”2 As the early Ca-
a stage that Christianity experienced liphate expanded, Islam,
several centuries ago, the byproducts of like Calvinism later, began
to sanction the search for
which—bloodshed and atrocities—were converts—a “militant pol-
3
equally present in Europe’s wars of religion. ity” as Hitti calls it —and
religious conviction assured
Arab unity and fervor. Contemptuous of fixed territorial boundaries—an essential
104 feature of modern sovereignty—the character of the Islamic polity is captured in
Bozeman’s metaphor of an “empire-in-motion,” the “greatest of all caravans,” in
which dynamism was provided by “the quest of the end rather than the end itself,
the moving rather than the arriving.”4 Thus, “Islam owes its unparalleled expan-
sion as a worldly power” to the idea of jihad.5 The sense of destiny provided by
religion was reinforced by early triumphs and rapid forward movement that at
once excited the spirit of nomadic warriors and promised the ultimate victory of
Islam.
In sum, in looking to the historical Khalifat Rashidun, the “rightly-guided
Caliphate,” and in seeking its restoration, militant Islam challenges the essential
meaning of territorial organization as “rule over a distinct space, the subjects in
that space, and the economy within that space.”6 Thus, recognizing that “the state
system has been eroding,” former U.S. secretary of state George P. Shultz defined
the challenge posed by al Qaeda as that of “an extensive, internationally connected
ideological movement dedicated to the destruction of our international system of
cooperation and progress.” The response: “First and foremost, we must shore up
the state system. The world has worked for three centuries with the sovereign state
as the basic operating entity, presumably accountable to its citizens and respon-
sible for their well-being.”7

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 Calvinism as a Precedent for Islamic Radicalism
In fact, the territorial state and the state system emerged from a lengthy
period of religious turmoil in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
That epoch, in which Christianity resolved the relationship among government,
society, and church, possessed several features that are now apparent within con-
temporary Islam and its effort to come to terms with the state system. Among these
features were conflict and schism within a dominant church between those de-
manding a literal reading of scripture as the basis for rulership and those willing to
settle for an alliance and division of labor between the church and the state. Also
present was a transnational movement of fundamentalists bent on achieving theo-
cratic rule led by charismatic, fanatical leaders prepared to use violence to achieve
their goals. In this sense, contemporary Islam is passing through a stage that Chris-
tianity experienced several centuries ago, the byproducts of which—bloodshed
and atrocities—were similarly present in Europe’s wars of religion. Calvinism, like
early Islam, had wide appeal in part owing to the simplicity of its rituals and its
egalitarianism in contrast to the corrupt and politicized practices of the Catholic
Church.8
Europe’s Reformation brought about various forms of Christian fundamen-
talism, efforts to establish theocratic rule, and a host of willing martyrs—also char-
acteristics of contemporary jihadist movements. The Reformation also featured
terrorism and counterterrorism, warfare unrestrained by legal conventions, and 105
transnational proselytizing of fundamentalist principles.
This paper briefly describes the key events by which Europe’s religious wars
fostered the evolution of the sovereign state and replaced a hierarchical structure
headed by the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire with a “decentral-
ized and anarchic”9 system with quasi-sovereign princes enjoying supremacy within
defined political boundaries. It then examines the origins and evolution of Calvin-
ism and the efforts of Calvinists in several settings to institute theocratic practices
based on a literal reading of scripture.

THE WESTPHALIAN MOMENT

Europe’s wars of religion, and especially the Thirty Years’ War, settled (at least
temporarily) the relationship between religion and the state. The evolution of the
sovereign state accelerated during Europe’s wars of religion, which followed the
Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Peace of
Augsburg in 1555, which ended war between the Holy Roman Emperor and the
Schmalkaldic League, established peaceful coexistence between Catholics and Prot-
estants and decreed an end to war based on religion among the polities of the Holy

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 RICHARD MANSBACH
Roman Empire.
The agreement granted princes new powers under the principle of cuius regio,
eius religio—he who governs the territory decides its religion. Thus, the prince
alone, as sovereign, would determine the religion of his subjects, who could leave if
unwilling to worship as their prince wished. This ruling was a major step toward
the independence of these incipient states.
However, Augsburg legitimated only Catholicism and Lutheranism.
Lutheranism, while challenging Catholic supremacy, did not challenge the author-
ity of secular princes and supported them vigorously during the 1524–25 Peas-
ants’ Revolt. Indeed, in his Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German
Nation, Luther sought the assistance of Germany’s princes, alluding to the pros-
pect of their independence from the Roman Church and to church property that
might be theirs. “The pope,” writes Luther, “never got by purchase such great
properties that from his officia alone he can raise about a million ducats, not to
mention the mines of treasure named above and the income of his lands. The
emperor, said Luther, should “leave to temporal lords the ruling of lands and peoples,
especially when no one has given them to him”; and it is God’s will that the empire
“be ruled by the Christian princes of Germany, regardless whether the pope stole
it, or got it by robbery, or made it anew.”10
106 The Augsburg settlement thus excluded the more radical Calvinism, whose
legitimation had to await the end of the Thirty Years’ War and the 1648 Peace of
Westphalia. Nevertheless, the desire for a lasting settlement was so strong that the
compromise peace, which satisfied no one completely and had many loopholes,
was accepted. In spite of its shortcomings, the Peace of Augsburg saved the empire
from serious internal conflicts for more than 50 years, just as the willingness since
the 1920s of Arab rulers, like the Saudis, to follow Wahhabi practice and interpre-
tation of the law postponed the collision between Islam and Arab states until the
present. Thus, Saudi Muslims are expected to take an oath of allegiance to their
rulers, who are expected to follow God’s laws.
Like Protestantism, Wahhabism was a reform movement that began in the
eighteenth century to rid Islam of the incrustations of previous centuries. Reminis-
cent of the attitude of early Protestant leaders toward Catholics and Catholicism,
Ibn ‘Abd ul-Wahhab was repelled by the extravagance of Muslims, including reli-
gious leaders, their pilgrimages to holy sites, and their worship of saints. Customs
such as Sufi mysticism, Shia veneration of Imams and worship at their tombs or at
natural artifacts, and pilgrimages to shrines were not sanctioned by the Qu’ran
and, therefore, were anathema to Wahhabists. Such practices smacked of polythe-
ism, just as the worship of saints did to Calvin.

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 Calvinism as a Precedent for Islamic Radicalism
The Peace of Augsburg did not end religious controversy and Protestantism
continued to spread. The Catholic order of Jesuits made aggressive efforts to recon-
vert Lutherans to Catholicism. It was in this environment that the political thinker
Jean Bodin contributed to the idea of the sovereign territorial state.
Sovereignty was an aspiration rather than a description of the world they
knew. Bodin, a sixteenth century French lawyer, lived during a period of religious
war between Protestant Huguenots and Catholic loyalists, who were both sup-
ported by outside powers. The king, a member of the Valois dynasty, enjoyed little
independent authority or power, a condition that Bodin believed had to be changed
if France was to be united. In his Six Books of the Republic (1576), Bodin defined
sovereignty as the “power to make the laws,” and he argued that a sovereign state
should enjoy “supreme power over citizens and subjects unrestrained by [external]
laws.”
The Thirty Years’ War, beginning in 1618, served as a critical moment for the
application of these ideas and the development of the sovereign state. Although the
war initially revolved around religious animosity unleashed by the Protestant Ref-
ormation, it later pitted Sweden, France, and a number of German princes against
the Habsburg rulers of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire. The war was fought
mainly in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire—Germany, Austria, Hun-
107
gary, Bohemia, and Belgium—and featured unrestrained violence and large-scale
atrocities against civilians. That brutality stimulated Hugo Grotius to write De jure
belli ac pacis (Concerning the Law of War and Peace) in 1625, which played a key
role in the development of an international law practiced between, rather than
above states—an important step in recognizing the independence and equality of
these territorial polities.
The war’s religious character faded after 1635 and ended with the Peace of
Westphalia, which recognized that a united Catholic empire was an unrealizable
dream. German lands lay in ruins, and the population of the empire had declined
from about 21 to 16 million. The great princes of the time recognized that, if no
limits were placed on war, their countries too could become victims of mindless
destruction.
The treaty between the Holy Roman Emperor, the King of France, and their
respective allies introduced the contours of state sovereignty in only two of its 128
articles, Articles 64 and 65. The treaty officially recognized Calvinism and reaf-
firmed the Peace of Augsburg, which the warring parties had failed to observe. The
peace also acknowledged the sovereign authority of the German princes in the
Holy Roman Empire.11 Each gained the right to govern his territory and make
independent decisions about war and peace. A hierarchy of authority within the

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 RICHARD MANSBACH
state, in which the government acts as the authoritative surrogate for its subjects or
citizens, and exclusive control of territory became the defining attributes of the
Westphalian polity.12
Although Augsburg and Westphalia focused on the interstate aspects of rela-
tions between state and religion in Europe, an important part of this tale involves
the transnational conflict between religious movements themselves. Calvinism was
a thoroughly fundamentalist rebellion against Rome that struck at the very idea of
state sovereignty, pursued theocratic governance, and was carried forward by lead-
ers as intolerant and fanatical as Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

TRANSNATIONAL PROTESTANT FUNDAMENTALISM

Luther and Calvin, observes Erich Fromm, “portray” an “all-pervading hostility”

that permeated their movements, “not only in the sense that these two men, per-
sonally, belonged to the ranks of the greatest haters among the leading figures of
history, certainly among religious leaders; but, which is more important, in the
sense that their doctrines were colored by this hostility and could only appeal to a

Calvinism...struck at the very idea of state group itself driven by an in-

tense repressed hostility.”
108 sovereignty, pursued theocratic governance, Calvin’s doctrine of predes-

and was carried forward by leaders as intol- tination condemned much of

mankind to hell and dam-
erant and fanatical as Osama bin Laden. nation in order to affirm the
sovereignty of God’s power. For Fromm, “the most striking expression of this hos-
tility is found in their concept of God, especially in Calvin’s doctrine.”13
A similarly intense repressed hostility is visible in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s
declaration of war “on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this
wrong ideology.” Osama bin Laden’s interpretation of the relationship between
Islam and the state display similar hostility: “If you have an excuse for not pursing
jihad, it does not give you the right to depend on the unjust ones, thus becoming
responsible for your sins as well as the sins of those who you misguide. Fear God for
your sake and for your nation’s sake. God does not need your flattery of dictators
for the sake of God’s religion.”
Let us examine, in the drama of the Reformation, the major actors who sought
to transform Europe into a Christian commonwealth built on fundamentalist and
theocratic ideas: Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. Although they were manipu-
lated by political entrepreneurs and were sensitive to contemporary political com-
plexities, these individuals were zealots whose ideas threatened to stunt the evolu-

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 Calvinism as a Precedent for Islamic Radicalism
tion of the European state.

ZWINGLI AND ZURICH

Luther’s successors developed the fundamentalist implications of the Reformation.

Thriving in Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli’s movement became the first Protestant polity
outside Germany in 1523. Among the most consistently fundamentalist of Protes-
tant leaders, Zwingli repeatedly argued that Christian rulers should adopt only
practices explicitly stated in the Old or New Testament, such as fasting during
Lent, the collection of tithes, papal authority, and clerical celibacy.
Zwingli demanded that law and policy be based solely on a literal rendition
of scripture and he argued that scripture could only have a single meaning. While
biblical rules demanded absolute obedience, other rules could demand none.14
This claim profoundly influenced the theocratic inclinations of strict versions of
Protestantism in Puritan New England and the Huguenot strongholds in France,
and it continues to influence evangelical U.S. Protestants.
Much as the fatwas and taped sermons of militant mullahs like Sheikh Omar
Abdul-Rahman turn impressionable and impoverished young Muslims into
jihadists, Zwingli’s theocratic goal became fanatical extremism in the hands of
109
Thomas Muentzer, whose effort to establish an ideal Christian commonwealth and
build the kingdom of God on earth erupted in the Peasants’ War in the South of
Germany. Muentzer’s idea of a commonwealth based on the equality of believers
was the Christian equivalent of Islam’s umma and influenced the most radical sect
of early Protestantism, the Anabaptists. The Anabaptist rejection of baptism was
part of a broader protest against existing political authority that went beyond
Zwingli’s beliefs in rejecting the state and led to a decisive break between Zwingli
and his one-time friends, the Anabaptists Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz. For
Zwingli, the state should be theocratic; for the Anabaptists, any state was anath-
ema to the autonomy of believers.

CALVIN AND GENEVA

The most influential of the Protestant reformers was John Calvin, trained in theol-
ogy and civil law in France. He, like Zwingli, went well beyond Luther in advocat-
ing theocratic authority. Luther enjoyed considerable support among German
princes like Frederick, elector of Saxony, and in An Open Letter to the Christian
Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, he
appealed to their desire for political independence from both the pope and the

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 RICHARD MANSBACH
Holy Roman Emperor as well as to their greed for church property. When Germany’s
peasants rose in his name, Luther did not hesitate to condemn them and support
their aristocratic masters.
In contrast, Calvin, like Zwingli, stood aloof from civil authority, insisting
that those who were predestined—“the elect”—have the obligation and compe-
tence to eliminate sinfulness. Inasmuch as God was sovereign, bishops, kings, and
other political leaders could not demand obedience. Calvin believed that political
and religious authority flowed from scripture and that individual salvation was
predestined and could not be obtained either by good works or priestly indul-
gence. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin saw a role for civil author-
ity—though he viewed it as inferior to the church—and denounced “infatuated
and barbarous men” who “are furiously endeavoring to overturn the order estab-
lished by God” and “the flatterers of princes extolling their power without mea-
sure” who “hesitate not to oppose it to the government of God.” Like Luther, he
argued that civil authority could not be legitimately overthrown because it was
authorized by God.15
German princes saw Calvin as a threat to the stability of their polities as well
as an implacable foe of Catholicism and the Holy Roman Empire. Calvin’s break
with Catholicism in 1532 and his preaching stirred considerable sentiment against
110 him that forced him to seek refuge in Basle, where he systematically mapped out
his version of Protestantism. In Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin articulated
his fundamentalist reliance on the literal word of the Bible, the rejection of most
ritual, and the elimination of “idolatry.” Christianity, he believed, must be cleansed
and simplified. Again, the parallel with Islam, notably Wahhabism and its demand
for more intense devotion, is clear.
However, it was not in Basle but in Geneva where Calvinist rule was first
established as a model of theocratic governance. For some time, Geneva, a city of
about 15,000, had grown increasingly independent of the rule of the Duchy of
Savoy and its resident bishop–prince who had governed the city from the mid-
fifteenth century. Protestant pastors had flocked to Geneva from Bern and Fribourg
in 1519 and 1526 respectively, and the Savoyards and their Catholic allies became
targets of growing municipal opposition. In 1535, the new faith was officially
accepted in Geneva, and by February 1536 Geneva’s city councils, as is often the
practice of fundamentalists, imposed rigid austerity on citizens based on strict
moral and religious norms, prohibiting gambling, heavy drinking, and blasphemy,
outlawing the Catholic sacraments, and requiring church attendance. Church al-
tars were desecrated, Mass was abandoned, priests were imprisoned, and sacred
images were destroyed. In the course of these events, the boundary between public

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 Calvinism as a Precedent for Islamic Radicalism
and private affairs was largely erased. Geneva became widely known as the “Protes-
tant Rome.”
The parallels between Calvinists and Wahhabists are again evident in their
demands for austerity. The Wahhabists, like the Calvinists, require conformity of
behavior, including regular public prayer. For both, public comportment reflects
genuine religiosity, and—like the citizens of Geneva—Wahhabists are encouraged
to report violations of behavioral standards such as modesty in dress, prohibitions
on the consumption of alcohol and intoxicants, and bans on most music and danc-
ing.
Calvin, who as a Frenchman blended easily in francophone Geneva, was in-
vited by the city to take charge of the new church and organize its relationship to
the city. He proceeded to organize Geneva’s society according to biblical principles
that became the basis for the community’s laws. He began by placing new leaders
at the head of the church and instituting a new confession of faith and a new
catechism of approved doctrine.
Calvin’s church enforced norms taken from a literal reading of the Bible,
norms that not all citizens welcomed, and he tried to exert church control over the
disciplining of citizens, including the power to excommunicate and deny partici-
pation in church ritual. He did not govern without resistance. His policies collided
111
with the local councils’ authority (the local councils had decided in 1538 that
anyone could share in the
Lord’s Supper), and coun- The parallels between Calvinists and Wahhabists
cil elections saw the defeat are evident in their demands for austerity.
of Calvin’s followers, the
election of his foes, and rioting in the streets provoked by those unwilling to accept
Calvinist doctrine. Calvin was temporarily exiled from Geneva until, after a period
of anarchy, he was asked to return.
Calvin did so and, for the rest of his life, instituted his theocratic views with
relish. He integrated the church with the civic government, ensuring that the
clergy would play a key role in political decision-making and incorporating an
austere morality into the law. To govern his church, Calvin, following The Acts of
the Apostles, established four categories of officeholders—pastors (to preach), teachers
(to instruct in doctrine), elders (to oversee discipline), and deacons (to administer
alms)—and then divided the city into three parishes in which 17 sermons were to
be given over four days of the week.
The 12 elders selected from the city’s councils formed a Consistory, perhaps
the most important instrument for enforcing Calvinist norms. This body met weekly
with the church’s pastors to impose ecclesiastical punishment on wayward citizens.

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 RICHARD MANSBACH
Attendance at sermons was mandatory, and individuals could be imprisoned for
failure to attend or for creating a disturbance in church. Citizens had to renounce
Catholicism, images, crucifixes, pilgrimages, Latin prayers, non-biblical names for
children, and fasting. Taverns were banned temporarily, and gambling was forbid-
den, much as
Many of these refugees were transformed into Afghanistan’s Taliban
radical Calvinists and helped spread Calvinist banned all outward
fundamentalism back to their homelands. shows of luxury and en-
tertainment during their
reign. Beginning in 1545, church officials began visiting private homes to deter-
mine citizens’ moral rectitude, and, like Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s religious police,
reported any offenses. Other such misbehaviors included criticism of pastors and
Calvin himself, the improper dress of women, untidy beards and hair on men, and
loud music.
Throughout all of this, Calvin was aided by foreign refugees who came to
Geneva like the co-nationals of Samuel Huntington’s “kin-country syndrome,” in
which groups belonging to one civilization move from country to country to aid
one another. Geneva became a haven for Protestants fleeing persecution in En-
gland, France, Holland, and Scotland. Many of these refugees, especially those of
112 French origin, were transformed into radical Calvinists and helped spread Calvinist
fundamentalism back to their homelands. The phenomenon is starkly similar to
that of the so-called “Afghans,” Muslim militants from many countries (including
Chechnya, Kosovo, and Iraq) who joined the Afghan resistance to Soviet occupa-
tion after Moscow’s 1979 invasion, and have reappeared in a variety of settings
pitting Muslims against non-Muslims.
Meanwhile, resistance to Calvin’s governance persisted after his return to
Geneva, owing partly to resentment against the Calvinist “foreigners” and partly to
dislike of Calvinist austerity. A similar dynamic can be seen, for example, when
Iraqis and Afghans excoriate “foreigner” jihadists who have left their home coun-
tries to take part in al Qaeda’s struggle to build theocracy. In the case of Geneva,
Calvin’s vigorous assault on dissent won out and thereafter his authority remained
unchallenged.
Calvin’s Geneva, like later Puritan and Islamic theocracies, tolerated neither
heresy nor apostasy and maintained an ideological monopoly over citizens’ behav-
ior. Miscreants like Jacques Gouet, who was beheaded in July 1547 for speaking
against Calvin’s doctrines, could expect little mercy. Other executions, as well as
imprisonments and banishments, followed. Prominent dissenter Michael Servetus
was burned at the stake. In November 1552, a city ordinance decreed that Calvin’s

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 Calvinism as a Precedent for Islamic Radicalism
Institutes of the Christian Religion was a “holy doctrine which no man might speak
against.” Thereafter, Calvin’s strict regulations were vigorously enforced. His au-
thority in Geneva remained unchallenged until his death. Clothing and food were
regulated, excommunications multiplied, the press was muted, and church crosses
were taken down. The Calvinist theocracy was complete. Geneva’s ministers went
forth to other cities and countries to proselytize the Calvinist version of Protestant-
ism. Geneva solidified its role as a center of transnational Protestantism, exercising
significant transnational influence over other Protestant communities elsewhere in
Europe, especially in Scotland where the quarrel between Charles and Cromwell
and the subsequent English civil war proved the occasion for a final effort on the
part of Scotland’s radical Presbyterians to declare their independence from the
state. Likewise, Protestants looked to Geneva as a spiritual haven from persecution
elsewhere, as large numbers of Huguenot refugees fled to Geneva after the 1572
massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris.

CONCLUSION

Calvinism would then make its way to the New World with the Puritans. Its legacy
continues to motivate many U.S. evangelicals in their efforts to infuse politics and
113
government with religion. Fundamentalism, after all, is not unique to Islam and
can be seen today in evangelical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, and even the
revival of Hinduism in India.
But the most important, violent contemporary struggle to determine the
relationship between church and civil government is being waged within the Is-
lamic umma. It remains for Muslims to determine what sort of political commu-
nity they will accept. Arab societies, for example, are torn by the tension between
the state and transnational Islam. Michael Barnett argues that, in the first iteration
of the struggle between these two estates, advocates of national sovereignty in the
Middle East initially triumphed, insofar as interaction among Arab governments
created new “state identities, roles, and interests” that produced “stable expecta-
tions and shared norms”16 associated with sovereignty. But “sovereignty is not per-
manently anchored,” and “Arab leaders must continually work to reproduce the
state’s sovereignty, its domestic and international authority, and the distinction
between domestic and international space. The failure of statist ideologies has res-
urrected primordial, ethnic, and, most famously, religious identities,”17 which in
turn threaten state sovereignty. “While Islamic movements may or may not be
compatible with juridical sovereignty,” declares Barnett, “they do challenge the
internal sovereignty of many Arab states.”18

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 RICHARD MANSBACH
Currently, Islamic societies are in the midst of a collision between the Euro-
pean-imposed model of sovereign states and the competing memories of Arab tribes
and clans and a greater Islamic community that ignores state frontiers. In sum, as
Bassam Tibi declares, “neither internal sovereignty, with its conception of citizen-
ship and national identity and loyalty, nor external sovereignty, with its idea of
mutual recognition of boundaries and authority over that territory, has a real coun-
terpart in Arab-Islamic history.”19
Islamic militancy is, of course, not the only challenge to the state and state
systems. The state is being pulled apart from above by the forces of global and
regional economic markets and emerging international civil society, and from be-
low by parochial ethnic, religious, and tribal emotions. Nevertheless, the outcome
of the struggle between the theocratic yearnings of many Muslims and the secular
propensities of modern states will help determine the nature of global politics in
coming decades. While the arrival of Islamic fundamentalism on the global stage
might seem alien to the secular, modern state system, it is important to remember
that modernity is the product of just such fundamentalist clashes. An examination
of the forces that produced the wars of religion in the West therefore proves essen-
tial to a better understanding of today’s conflicts within Islam. W A

114 NOTES

1. James A. Caporaso, “Changes in the Westphalian Order: Territory, Public Authority, and Sover-
eignty,” International Studies Review 2, no. 2 (2000): 1.
2. Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs: A Short History (Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery,1956), 60.
3. Hitti, The Arabs, 36.
4. Adda B. Bozeman, Politics and Culture in International History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1960), 366.
5. Hitti, The Arabs, 55.
6. Caporaso, “Changes in the Westphalian Order,” 11.
7. George P. Shultz, “A Changed World,” (lecture, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 11 February
2004). A condensed version of this speech can be found at http://www.fpri.org/enotes/
20040322.americawar.shultz.changedworld.html
8. The egalitarian bent of Islam probably owes much to the egalitarian nature of the Bedouin society in
which it arose. See Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1991), 28-29.
9. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), 88.
10. Martin Luther, Open Letter to The Christian Nobility of the German Nation, 1520, http://
etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-reldem?id=LutNobi.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/
english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all.
11. See Benno Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern International
Relations (London: Verso, 2003). Teschke argues that the modern state only emerged with nineteenth-
century industrialization.
12. See Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1999). Krasner argues persuasively that sovereignty has always been honored in the breach.

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 Calvinism as a Precedent for Islamic Radicalism
13. Erich Fromm, The Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge & Paul Ltd., 1960), 81-82.
14. Luther and Zwingli disagreed over the Eucharist. Luther accepted consubstantiation, while Zwingli
believed that the Eucharist was purely symbolic because Jesus was divine and had no human aspect. Efforts
by Philip of Hesse to mediate the dispute in 1529 and maintain the political alliance between German and
Swiss Protestants failed and Protestant unity was never restored. See W.P. Stephens, Zwingli: An Introduc-
tion to His Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
15. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, (1845-1846).
16. Michael N. Barnett, “Sovereignty, Nationalism, and Regional Order in the Arab States System,”
International Organization 49:3 (1995): 480-481.
17. Ibid., 509.
18. Ibid., 509. For an analysis of the compatibility between Islam and judicial sovereignty, see James
Piscatori, Islam in a World of Nation-States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
19. Bassam Tibi, “The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in
the Modern Middle East,” in Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, eds., Tribes and State Formation in the
Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 127.

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